My daughter has submitted transcripts to 8 schools. One asked for an essay from previous year. None asked for any application materials beyond school profile and senior class list. She has received one actual admissions likely letter and two other positive responses. It appears the others are after August 1. She also may have fallen off the list of others. Ouch.
The preference from each is visit with team to make sure it is a fit both ways then ED, so doing any additional effort before you know where you want to be is asking a lot of these kids. However, that is a good way to determine how serious one might be.
The whole experience is awkward at best. She has some outside chances at D-1 schools still. Seems like that leaks into September as first groups of players commit. Such a different experience than my older boys who were not going for sports…went to large OOS public. They knew what they wanted and got it.